A business transaction involves an exchange of money, goods, and/or services between two or more parties. One common type of business transaction is when a buyer purchases an item or service from a seller, and pays for the item or service using a check, a credit card, or cash. Some types of purchases involve multiple buyers and/or multiple sellers. Another common type of business transaction is when an individual withdraws money from an automated teller machine (ATM). If the ATM is not directly affiliated with the individual's bank, the individual may also be required to pay a service and/or bank charge. Many different types of business transactions occur with these types of associated service charges.
In many cases, a business transaction may be performed using a payment type linked to a banking account, a credit account, a brokerage account, or another type of financial account managed by a financial institution. For example, checks and debit cards are typically linked to banking accounts, and credit cards are typically linked to credit lines. Many different payment types are linked to financial accounts. When such business transactions occur, the financial institution managing the account stores information about the business transaction and uses the information to manage the account's balance. For example, when an item is purchased, the information may indicate the amount of money exchanged, the buyer's identity, and the seller's identity. In this example, the buyer's financial institution may store information indicating that money left the buyer's account, and the seller's financial institution may store information indicating that money has entered the seller's account.
As a service to customers, many financial institutions make information about business transactions available in electronic form. For example, a banking customer may be able to login to a website and view information about business transactions performed by the banking customer. Further, some financial management software applications now include the ability to transfer information about business transactions from financial institutions into the financial management software application. Information about business transactions may be viewed in many different forms. However, information provided by financial institutions is often limited in scope and may be confusing. For example, the information may include an abbreviated form of a seller's street address without including the seller's business name. When information about a business transaction lacks sufficient detail, the information is less valuable (e.g., someone may have difficulty identifying the business transaction to which the information refers, tracking business transactions, evaluating tax consequences, and/or categorizing the business transaction).